Do cold baths use more calories ...

Seriously, is that the real reason why so many people on here are so keen on immersing themselves in icy water?

My impression, based on a loose awareness of thermodynamics and concepts like shivering thermogenesis, is that the answer is "yes, but not enough to justify the discomfort involved" - but I've never seen any figures or equations to back this up. Can anyone here enlighten me?

age 14 & anorexic, i thought it did. i also thought drinking cold water was good, for much the same reason.

the below was stuck on the wall of the physics dept. at college:

Beer and Ice Cream Diet

As we all know, it takes 1 calorie to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree centigrade. Translated into meaningful terms, this means that if you eat a very cold dessert (generally consisting of water in large part), the natural processes which raise the consumed dessert to body temperature during the digestive cycle literally sucks the calories out of the only available source, your body fat.

For example, a dessert served and eaten at near 0 degrees C (32.2 deg.F) will in a short time be raised to the normal body temperature of 37 degrees C (98.6 deg. F). For each gram of dessert eaten, that process takes approximately 37 calories as stated above. The average dessert portion is 6 oz, or 168 grams. Therefore, by operation of thermodynamic law, 6,216 calories (1 cal./gm/deg. x 37 deg. x 168 gms) are extracted from body fat as the dessert's temperature is normalized.

Allowing for the 1,200 latent calories in the dessert, the net calorie loss is approximately 5,000 calories. Obviously, the more cold dessert you eat,the better off you are and the faster you will lose weight, if that is your goal.

This process works equally well when drinking very cold beer in frosted glasses. Each ounce of beer contains 16 latent calories, but extracts 1,036 calories (6,216 cal. per 6 oz. portion) in the temperature normalizing process. Thus the net calorie loss per ounce of beer is 1,020 calories. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to calculate that 12, 240 calories (12 oz. x 1,020 cal./oz.) are extracted from the body in the process of drinking a can of beer.

Frozen desserts, e.g., ice cream, are even more beneficial, since it takes 83 cal./gm to melt them (i.e., raise them to 0 deg. C) and an additional 37 cal./gm to further raise them to body temperature. The results here are really remarkable, and it beats running hands down.

Unfortunately, for those who eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer, pizza (loaded with latent calories and served above body temperature) induces an opposite effect. But, thankfully, as the astute reader should have already reasoned, the obvious solution is to drink a lot of beer with pizza and follow up immediately with large bowls of ice cream.

We could all be thin if we were to adhere religiously to a pizza, beer, and ice cream diet.

Vrap, as a medical professional surely you are more qualified than most of us to answer your own question? Interesting concept though, it sort of makes sense that your body would use up more energy. I'd never thought of that before, just use cold showers for the afore-mentioned muscle relief.

I do actually know someone who only managed to lose the last couple of pounds on her diet after switching jobs from bakery to deli counter in Morrisons. She attributed it to the change in temperature rather than the greater distance between her and the donuts.

The was an article in New Scientist recently that listed lots of reasons why people are more overweight now than they were 50 years ago. One of them was that we now generally all live in centrally heated houses. Before when peoples houses were much colder they had to expend more calories generating body heat to stay warm.

So I think the cold bath thing would use more calories, assuming that your body had time to adjust and start generating more body heat.(?)

Previously bookmarked threads are now visible in "Followed Threads". You can also manage notifications on these threads from the "Forum Settings" section of your profile settings page to prevent being sent an email when a reply is made.

Runner's World is a publication of Hearst Magazines UK which is the trading name of The National Magazine Company Ltd, 72 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 9EP. Registered in England 112955. All rights reserved. Runner's World, Part of the Hearst UK wellbeing network